Comedian Phoebe Robinson hosted the digital ceremony of the 72nd National Book Awards. Image: National Book Foundation video
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
A Second Year’s Digital Presentation
As Publishing Perspectives readers will recall, the 72nd National Book Awards program’s organizers had hoped they could produce the customary live ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. Instead, they opted for a second year’s digital presentation (embedded below), streamed this evening (November 17).
The National Book Foundation reports that publishers submitted a total 1,892 books for this year’s awards, in this breakdown of categories:
- Fiction: 415 submissions
- Nonfiction: 679 submissions
- Poetry: 290 submissions
- Translated Literature: 164 submissions
- Young People’s Literature: 344 submissions
In each category here, we’ll list the winner at the top, followed by her or his and repeat the other finalists.
Fiction Winner: Jason Mott
Jason Mott has published three previous novels. His first novel, The Returned, was turned into a television series. He has a BFA in fiction and an MFA in poetry, both from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
| Author | Title | Publisher / Imprint |
| Winner: Jason Mott | Hell of a Book | Penguin Random House / Dutton |
| Anthony Doerr | Cloud Cuckoo Land | Simon & Schuster / Scribner |
| Lauren Groff | Matrix | Penguin Random House / Riverhead Books |
| Laird Hunt | Zorrie | Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Robert Jones Jr. | The Prophets | Penguin Random House / GP Putnam’s Sons |
Nonfiction Winner: Tiya Miles
Tiya Miles is a history professor of history and holds the Radcliffe Alumnae Professor seat at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, serving as director of the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard. She’s a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship.
Miles is the author of The Dawn of Detroit, which won the Frederick Douglass Book Prize, among other honors, as well as Ties That Bind, The House on Diamond Hill, The Cherokee Rose: A Novel of Gardens and Ghosts, and Tales from the Haunted South, a published lecture series.
| Author | Title | Publisher / Imprint |
| Winnera: Tiya Miles | All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake | Penguin Random House / Random House |
| Hanif Abdurraqib | A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance | Penguin Random House / Random House |
| Lucas Bessire | Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains | Princeton University Press |
| Grace M. Cho | Tastes Like War: A Memoir | Feminist Press at the City University of New York (CUNY) |
| Nicole Eustace | Covered With Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America | WW Norton / Liveright |
Poetry Winner: Martín Espada
Martín Espadahas published more than 20 books as a poet, editor, essayist, and translator, including Vivas to Those Who Have Failed and The Republic of Poetry, a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He has won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
| Author | Title | Publisher / Imprint |
| Winner: Martín Espada | Floaters | WW Norton & Company |
| Desiree C. Bailey | What Noise Against the Cane | Yale University Press |
| Douglas Kearney | Sho | Wave Books |
| Hoa Nguyen | A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure | Wave Books |
| Jackie Wang | The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save Us From the Void | Nightboat Books |
Translated Literature Winners:
Elisa Shua Dusapin and Aneesa Abbas Higgins
Elisa Shua Dusapin is French, and was raised in Paris, Seoul, and Switzerland. Winter in Sokcho is her first novel, and was awarded the Prix Robert Walser and the Prix Régine Desforges. Its translation rights have sold into six languages.
Aneesa Abbas Higgins has translated books by Vénus Khoury-Ghata, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Ali Zamir, and Nina Bouraoui. Seven Stones by Vénus Khoury-Ghata was shortlisted for the Scott Moncrieff Prize, and both A Girl Called Eel by Ali Zamir and What Became of the White Savage by François Garde won PEN Translates awards.
| Author | Title | Original Language | Translator | Publisher / Imprint |
| Winner: Elisa Shua Dusapin | Winter in Sokcho | French | Winner: Aneesa Abbas Higgins | Open Letter |
| Ge Fei | Peach Blossom Paradise | Chinese | Canaan Morse | New York Review Books |
| Nona Fernández | The Twilight Zone | Spanish | Natasha Wimmer | Graywolf Press |
| Benjamin Labatut | When We Cease To Understand the World | Spanish | Adrian Nathan West | New York Review Books |
| Samar Yazbek | Planet of Clay | Arabic | Leri Price | World Editions |
Young People’s Literature Winner: Malinda Lo
Malinda Lo is the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of several novels, including most recently A Line in the Dark, which was chosen as a Kirkus and Vulture “best young adult book of the year.” Her novel Ash, a lesbian retelling of Cinderella, was a finalist for the William C. Morris Young Adult Debut Award, the Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction, and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature.
Lo is a three-time finalist for the Lambda Literary Award.
| Author | Title | Publisher / Imprint |
| Winner: Malinda Lo | Last Night at the Telegraph Club | Penguin Random House / Dutton Books for Young Readers |
| Shing Yin Khor | The Legend of Auntie Po | Penguin Random House / Kokila |
| Kyle Lukoff | Too Bright to See | Penguin Random House / Dial Books for Young Readers |
| Kekla Magoon | Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People | Candlewick Press |
| Amber McBride | Me (Moth) | Macmillan Publishers / Feiwel and Friends |
The program also included the formal presentations of the National Book Awards’ two lifetime achievement awards—Karen Tei Yamashita was recognized with the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, presented by Viet Thanh Nguyen; and Nancy Pearl received the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, presented by Ron Charles.
More from Publishing Perspectives on the National Book Awards is here, and on publishing and book awards programs in general is here.
More on the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on international book publishing is here